Sunday, March 18, 2007

What's in your shopping cart?

FIRST, the shopping list:

Toilet paper
Dog Food (cans)
Bologna
English muffins
DVD's (blanks)
Pancake syrup
10 pound bag of potatoes
Six pack of Coca-cola
Tub of spreadable margarine
newspaper
Aluminum foil
laundry detergent
$10 gift card (looks like a credit card)
Pringle's Potato Chips (in tube, not bag)
Bic lighter

NEXT, your writer's challenge...

Pick any five items from the above list and use them to write/create/complete any of the following (and you can write a short story or paragraph or scene from a screenplay):

You and your fellow shoppers become hostages when the in-store bank branch is robbed. You are herded to the shipping dock in back where the only things accessible to you are the items in your cart but you only have time to grab five of them. Which five do you take and how do you use each one to survive? Do you escape and what role did those items play in your escape?

You are a crime scene investigator and you discover five items from the above list at your crime scene. Which items, how/where/in what condition are they found and how do they help you solve the crime?

You get washed up on an island. There is no trace of the yacht that went down at sea but some debris has floated up on shore. Pick any five items from the list and explain how you use them to survive until rescue arrives. How long are you able to hold out? How do you use any of your five items to get more "items" available on the island and how do they help you to survive?

Your vacation cabin seems to be haunted. Who is your ghostly companion and what five items do they insist you stock up on? What significance do those five items have for your ghost and/or why does the ghost think you will face incredible danger without them? How do you and the ghost, working together, use those five items to solve a mystery?

You are the mayor of a large city and you must suddenly remove five items on the list from all store shelves in your city. Why? And why those five items? And what happens when your city must go without those five items for a significant period of time?